PDA

View Full Version : writing really good content vs hiring an seo company?



veritasvisions
08-21-2015, 06:51 PM
I've heard people say they dont do any seo because they just put up really great content with relevant keywords. However, i've heard some companies get good results building links. What is your experience?

Harold Mansfield
08-21-2015, 06:55 PM
I've heard people say they dont do any seo because they just put up really great content with relevant keywords. However, i've heard some companies get good results building links. What is your experience?
What does your own link suggest?

veritasvisions
08-21-2015, 08:07 PM
My link suggests ways to bring traffic to your website. How is that relevant to my question Harold?

Harold Mansfield
08-22-2015, 02:19 PM
My link suggests ways to bring traffic to your website. How is that relevant to my question Harold?
You're asking about link building, content marketing, as it pertains to SEO, meanwhile you have a link that proposes to inform of 3 "New" ways to bring traffic to your site.
I'm just proposing that it seems like you already know about these things because you're promoting ways to get website traffic, and that maybe you can get your own discussion going by sharing your own experiences compared to what you're suggesting in your link.

cbscreative
08-22-2015, 02:38 PM
I'm figured Harold's question stems from your sig touting ways to bring in traffic yet you're asking about SEO.

If your intent is simply to compare notes on what the professional SEO people here will have to say on the topic, good SEO always involves useful content that real people will want to interact with. If you're hiring a writer for web content, it's highly advisable that they know both SEO and online user behavior. The web is not like other forms of writing.

Your question about link building invites all kinds of trouble. The methods of link building quite often involve spam. We get all kinds of "link builders" here but the members either never see their sludge or it gets quickly deleted. I've had many instances with new clients who got burned by so called SEO experts and discovered that the link building tactics used were highly detrimental to those clients and their reputation. That kind of spill is not easy to clean up. Let the buyer beware.

Taking this back full circle, legitimate link building involves great content. Create content people will want to link to and a lot of your link building happens naturally. Just be prepared that some people would rather steal it than link to it. When you have great content it's only a matter of time before someone helps themselves and tries to make it look like they created the content themselves. Fortunately, Google knows the original source and the thief will never rank for their stolen content. They're getting the lack of benefit their misdeeds deserve.

Harold Mansfield
08-22-2015, 03:10 PM
I'm figured Harold's question stems from your sig touting ways to bring in traffic yet you're asking about SEO...

Your question about link building invites all kinds of trouble. The methods of link building quite often involve spam. We get all kinds of "link builders" here but the members either never see their sludge or it gets quickly deleted. I've had many instances with new clients who got burned by so called SEO experts and discovered that the link building tactics used were highly detrimental to those clients and their reputation. That kind of spill is not easy to clean up. Let the buyer beware.

Yes, this is exactly my point.

MikeSweeney
08-22-2015, 11:27 PM
Content with good quality is important. It should provide value or information on topics people are searching. Keywords play a part in that or to the SEO people they refer to it as "On Page SEO". The link building would be what they call "Off Page SEO". Depending on how competitive they keyword or keywords you want to rank for will determine if and how much linking is required.

veritasvisions
08-23-2015, 04:15 AM
I'm figured Harold's question stems from your sig touting ways to bring in traffic yet you're asking about SEO.

If your intent is simply to compare notes on what the professional SEO people here will have to say on the topic, good SEO always involves useful content that real people will want to interact with. If you're hiring a writer for web content, it's highly advisable that they know both SEO and online user behavior. The web is not like other forms of writing.

Your question about link building invites all kinds of trouble. The methods of link building quite often involve spam. We get all kinds of "link builders" here but the members either never see their sludge or it gets quickly deleted. I've had many instances with new clients who got burned by so called SEO experts and discovered that the link building tactics used were highly detrimental to those clients and their reputation. That kind of spill is not easy to clean up. Let the buyer beware.

Well, i suppose that makes sense. My link, if you opt in, simply talks about new ways to generate traffic to your site that have nothing to do with seo. Even so, it's always okay to keep learnig and asking questions.

The main reason i am asking this is that i may hire a company called Boostability. They are recommended by Neil Patel. The sales rep tells me that they have many clients that have huge authorities in my industry that can help me rank by creating links from their sites to mine. On the other hand, I hear many stories of sites that have high rankings simply because they have good quality content with relevant keywords. I mean some of these sites completely dominate just with content. So i am deciding whether to spend money on Content or hire boostablity to get rankings using links.

veritasvisions
08-23-2015, 04:18 AM
You're asking about link building, content marketing, as it pertains to SEO, meanwhile you have a link that proposes to inform of 3 "New" ways to bring traffic to your site.
I'm just proposing that it seems like you already know about these things because you're promoting ways to get website traffic, and that maybe you can get your own discussion going by sharing your own experiences compared to what you're suggesting in your link.

Sure, I may start another discussion on that.

Harold Mansfield
08-23-2015, 12:42 PM
I'm playing devils advocate here.


The main reason i am asking this is that i may hire a company called Boostability. They are recommended by Neil Patel. The sales rep tells me that they have many clients that have huge authorities in my industry that can help me rank by creating links from their sites to mine.
What else are the supposed to say? This is a standard pitch by many SEO companies. My advice would be to run as far away from this specific promise as you can. Even if true, and even if posting links on these mystery sites helps you in any way, it only helps you as long as you keep paying to be linked on those sites.

Instead of building your own marketing profile, and generating your own traffic and recognition online, you'll be hostage to being a part of someone elses.

A good rule of thumb to always remember is that there are no shortcuts online, and strive to have your own, and make your own way.

If I'm going to pay for links, it's going to be on well known industry related, or review sites, or maybe even running ads. My own stuff. Not an SEO company's websites.


On the other hand, I hear many stories of sites that have high rankings simply because they have good quality content with relevant keywords. I mean some of these sites completely dominate just with content.

There's more to it than just that, but yes you can do it yourself. It's not easy. Creating good content that people actually want to read and promoting it so that it is seen is very, very hard and takes time to build credibility. But (outside of advertising) it's the only way. Paying someone for shortcuts doesn't last long. Learn to do it yourself, put in the work and the time, and you'll be able to help yourself for the life of your business, AND at least by learning you'll know what to look for if you do hire someone in the future.

Trust me, "we'll put your link on our mystery high ranking sites that may or may not have anything to do with your industry, may or may not even be in English, using methods that we can't divulge and may or may not be accepted by Google", is not the way to go. I don't care who recommends it. I'd actually stop listening to that person and anyone else who tells you the way to internet success is to pay them to put your link on "authority" sites. Actually as soon as anyone utters the words "authority sites" in the same conversation as SEO I stop listening.

How does every SEO company seem to have this huge list of high ranking industry related "authority sites", regardless of what industry you're in?
Can you quote me anything from Google about what an "authority site" is, and how they determine such a designation?
Why not strive to be your own "authority" site? That's where real success online comes. Being the source, not piggybacking someone elses.

JMO of course.

cbscreative
08-24-2015, 01:38 PM
at least by learning you'll know what to look for if you do hire someone in the future

Nail head, hammer, swing, hit. That is good advice for any business owner. You don't have to become an authority on SEO, but there is great value in knowing enough to avoid being taken.

And like Harold's post says if I were to summarize it in one sentence, snake oil is sold as a shortcut you will want to believe will work but real work is what pays off.

Mont Ellis Consulting
08-24-2015, 03:51 PM
If your intent is simply to compare notes on what the professional SEO people here will have to say on the topic, good SEO always involves useful content that real people will want to interact with. If you're hiring a writer for web content, it's highly advisable that they know both SEO and online user behavior. The web is not like other forms of writing.
.

I have a question regarding the second part of this....can you please explain to me why they have to know both SEO and online user behaviour? And how is it diffrent from other forms of writing?

I ask because I have started creating content recently and also publishing LinkedIn posts. Most of my LinkedIn contacts are Veterinarians because I worked in that industry for a long time, so I am creating relevant content and getting people reading the blogs both on LinkedIn and on the website.

So, other than the content being well written, engaging, relevant etc - what else do I need to worry about? It sounds like I may be missing something?

Harold Mansfield
08-24-2015, 04:01 PM
I have a question regarding the second part of this....can you please explain to me why they have to know both SEO and online user behaviour? And how is it diffrent from other forms of writing?

I ask because I have started creating content recently and also publishing LinkedIn posts. Most of my LinkedIn contacts are Veterinarians because I worked in that industry for a long time, so I am creating relevant content and getting people reading the blogs both on LinkedIn and on the website.

So, other than the content being well written, engaging, relevant etc - what else do I need to worry about? It sounds like I may be missing something?

I know you didn't ask me, but I'm chomping at the bit.

Because marketing, especially marketing online, is more than just putting words down. It's about knowing your target audience...where they are, what they're looking for and when they're looking for it, how they think, what information is relevant to them and how to present that information in a way that attracts them and raises your offering above all of the noise.

Yes, it's human behavior. Marketing is under sales. Sales requires that you understand of how people tick and what they respond to and there are differences between how people interact online, than how they would in the physical world.

A content writer who doesn't know your business/industry, target market and online marketing in general cannot create the kind of content that will do you any good. All content writers do is plop down 300+ words with your keyword sprinkled around to try and attract search results. They don't know sales and marketing.

A professional copywriter, for example, is different. They make it their business to know how to market to your target audience and present you and your information in a way that satisfies both the search engines and your sales process from start to finish. That's why they cost more than your average $5 article writer. Because there's more to it than just writing some words. It's also an understanding of marketing. A good copywriter is worth the money, and what they create for you can serve your marketing for years.

Given all of that, the direction still has to come from you. Whoever you hire for whatever you hire them for should be following the overall marketing (branding, communications, company personality) that you create or are creating.

Mont Ellis Consulting
08-25-2015, 01:36 AM
Makes perfect sense, thanks Harold. I think I just didn't understand the difference between a professional copywriter and a content writer.
Wouldn't dream of hiring a content writer for the sake of SEO!

Harold Mansfield
08-25-2015, 11:55 AM
Makes perfect sense, thanks Harold. I think I just didn't understand the difference between a professional copywriter and a content writer.
Wouldn't dream of hiring a content writer for the sake of SEO!

It's not a completely ridiculous thing to do, but you mostly see it with people who have MFA (Made for adsense) websites. But even that is quickly falling out of favor and those old tricks don't work anymore. Google is also much more discerning now.

cbscreative
08-25-2015, 01:14 PM
I have a question regarding the second part of this....can you please explain to me why they have to know both SEO and online user behaviour? And how is it diffrent from other forms of writing?

I ask because I have started creating content recently and also publishing LinkedIn posts. Most of my LinkedIn contacts are Veterinarians because I worked in that industry for a long time, so I am creating relevant content and getting people reading the blogs both on LinkedIn and on the website.

So, other than the content being well written, engaging, relevant etc - what else do I need to worry about? It sounds like I may be missing something?


I know you didn't ask me, but I'm chomping at the bit.

Because marketing, especially marketing online, is more than just putting words down. It's about knowing your target audience...where they are, what they're looking for and when they're looking for it, how they think, what information is relevant to them and how to present that information in a way that attracts them and raises your offering above all of the noise.

Yes, it's human behavior. Marketing is under sales. Sales requires that you understand of how people tick and what they respond to and there are differences between how people interact online, than how they would in the physical world.

A content writer who doesn't know your business/industry, target market and online marketing in general cannot create the kind of content that will do you any good. All content writers do is plop down 300+ words with your keyword sprinkled around to try and attract search results. They don't know sales and marketing.

A professional copywriter, for example, is different. They make it their business to know how to market to your target audience and present you and your information in a way that satisfies both the search engines and your sales process from start to finish. That's why they cost more than your average $5 article writer. Because there's more to it than just wring some words. It's also an understanding of marketing.

In addition to Harold's excellent reply, writing for the web has some rules that need to be known. Most are simple like "bite sized chunks" for text. That means keeping paragraphs short, 4-5 lines or less with rare exceptions, setting key points off with single sentence paragraphs, bold, italic, bulleted list, etc. Online attention spans are very short so you have about 8 seconds before your visitor decides to stay or leave. Your text must be "skimable" because that's how the page interaction begins. Only after the visitor believes your page has something of value to them will they transition from skimming to reading.

Other simple rules for both SEO and human users include avoiding a "wall of text" (it must be easy on the eyes or the back button will be quickly used), good use of headings (h1, h2, etc.), attention grabbers in headings and opening sentences, using "anchor text" to link to relevant pages dedicated to the keywords inside that anchor text, avoid "selling" and stick to persuasion only, and of course, laying out the course of action you want the reader to take. Yes, many of these apply to offline writing but are often applied differently online.

Delving a little deeper, knowledge of subjects like eye tracking studies help a good web copywriter structure the text in a way that readers will be less likely to click away from. This does require more planning than simply throwing keywords into an article like Harold mentioned. Picking up on his statement about Google getting more discerning, each rollout of new algorithms has improved Google's ability to predict human response to the content. Those using SEO tricks lament these changes. Those focusing on basic unchanging rules of SEO and creating content for the benefit of their target market have nothing to worry about as Google tweaks their ability to deliver what people are really looking for.

Rather than a long dissertation on the subject, sites like Copyblogger (http://www.copyblogger.com) will help.

veritasvisions
08-25-2015, 05:05 PM
This is an excellent and very helpful discussion.

kb24
09-02-2015, 05:59 PM
Writing good quality content. This is what google is looking for. If your content is informative and provides what the reader is looking for then you will get traffic to your site because your content will get shared.

janefirst
10-07-2015, 07:58 AM
Write titles and descriptions for search engines and content for online users. Your content must be of high quality that maintain keyword density. Update content time to time for sake of your online visitors and help them to avail your genuine information with misleading them. Back links are also useful for organic searches.

Palani Kumar
10-29-2015, 02:49 AM
I've heard people say they dont do any seo because they just put up really great content with relevant keywords. However, i've heard some companies get good results building links. What is your experience?


Just as they say you need to arms to clap, you need both good SEO (Onpage factors, trust worthy links and a good online reputation) to get organic traffic for your website. Neither can work alone (for organic Traffic) but I would recommend building a great content before thinking about SEO or any other website marketing strategy.

veritasvisions
11-03-2015, 04:37 PM
Check this out. Very valuable article written by neil patel. 10 Advanced SEO Techniques That’ll Double Your Search Traffic (http://neilpatel.com/2015/04/23/10-advanced-seo-techniques-thatll-double-your-search-traffic/)

turboguy
11-03-2015, 04:57 PM
I took a quick look and was impressed. I want to look closer when I have more time.

Brian Davis
11-12-2015, 04:15 AM
If you are rather new to SEO than it's better to hire SEO company or SEO specialist. You can controll them and learn smth from them. Huge range of factors impact on SEO, not only content and linkbuilding, so you need to think about it.

Touch Digital Media
08-04-2016, 09:34 AM
I would advise employing both strategies to achieve maximum results. His quality back links are looked upon as favorable by search engines and can help improve your domain authority. The old adage "content is king" rings true into days world of SEO. Informative content attracts visitors and builds community which in turn raises your visibility and authority in search engines.

LocalSearchSolutions
08-10-2016, 04:53 PM
No site ranks without links. No site acquires truly great links without great content. The two are intertwined IMO.

ChadR
08-11-2016, 11:21 AM
The days of building thousands of links for top page SEO results are over. Google and other search engines place a greater emphasis on unique and quality content. Your audience and potential customers do too. You're far better off investing in a good content marketing campaign, than some SEO firm who only builds links.

Today, SEO is more about balance. Publish original content on your website's blog, post interesting conversation starters on social media linked back to your blogs or landing pages (the higher number of shares the better), do plenty of keyword research and include those keywords in your content, and build out both your PPC and organic campaigns together. If you're not a writer, it's pretty easy to hire writers from services like Writers Access who will produce quality 500 word blogs on your topics for around $40-$50 per blog. Start with publishing at least one blog per week. Quality images, info graphics or videos do much better on social media than simple text posts.

It may seem like a lot compared to hiring a simple SEO company, but you're better off investing in your own content marketing than handing money over to link builders.

WaveRunnerFun
08-30-2016, 02:24 AM
The days of building thousands of links for top page SEO results are over. Google and other search engines place a greater emphasis on unique and quality content. Your audience and potential customers do too. You're far better off investing in a good content marketing campaign, than some SEO firm who only builds links.

Today, SEO is more about balance. Publish original content on your website's blog, post interesting conversation starters on social media linked back to your blogs or landing pages (the higher number of shares the better), do plenty of keyword research and include those keywords in your content, and build out both your PPC and organic campaigns together. If you're not a writer, it's pretty easy to hire writers from services like Writers Access who will produce quality 500 word blogs on your topics for around $40-$50 per blog. Start with publishing at least one blog per week. Quality images, info graphics or videos do much better on social media than simple text posts.

It may seem like a lot compared to hiring a simple SEO company, but you're better off investing in your own content marketing than handing money over to link builders.

I need to figure out a way to save this post, very well said and concise. It only makes sense. Very well said Chad..
I don't know how much has changed in 3 years, but when I paid a buddy $300 do design my website and host it in 3 weeks i moved from #8 -> #3 on google. Never paid for SEO, or marketing. He used word press and that was it.. Either he did a great job or what Chad said is true. It was a very basic site, the only special thing about it was it was linked to my facebook business page.. And that's not very special at all im opinion.. i didn't have a blog by the way.

Arang
09-01-2016, 04:09 AM
hi @veritasvisions, with good content will the more people will be interested and with those keywords insert in content is very good for seo. Link building will help promote your site. Tt is better to combine the two to bring the highest effective SEO

cuong.hellomedia
09-06-2016, 03:51 AM
My link suggests ways to bring traffic to your website.
Instead of building your own marketing profile, and generating your own traffic and recognition online, you'll be hostage to being a part of someone elses.

adamxtubeage
09-15-2016, 02:16 AM
Don't go for hiring any SEO company before knowing anything about SEO atfirst because if you didn't have knowledge about it you can surely get into a big problem. This is true that atfirst 30-90 days you can see a drastic rank increase of your website but after that there is a big chance that your website will be permanently "deindexed" from Google which we also known as "Panda and Penguin attack". Seo companies always promise that they use all legal and ethical proven techniques while building links but that's not the fact.

For a simple example you can find this by enquiring the SEO comapany you are thinking of hiring just ask them this simple questions:

- what is the average PR of websites where your links will be placed?
- is they will provide contextual, footer or any other types of links there?
- if contextual how many words article will be used and how many links on that article?
- Do Not go for footer links they can send traffic but didn't rank your website rather then derank it.
- what is the OBL (OUTBOUND LINKS) on that page where link will be placed
-and there are many more points but this are main

you can easily find that with their answers. If OBL is high that's a risk. You have to check that the website is not a part of PBN (Red Alert for 2016 SEO)

On the other hand if you know about SEO then you can easily rank your website by yourself without hiring any SEO company here's how:

- create informative content (that can go viral research about it)
- atleast include your main keyword and LSI keywords in your title,subtitle and in the article (maximum is 3 in a 500 words article)
- make your category named on your main keyword
- Make your article excerpt with keyword rich
- create social profiles in all major social networks (major factor in 2016 SEO)
- make your website SSL enabled (another major factor of 2016 SEO)
- create important pages on your website like about us,privacy policy, terms etc (very important nowadays for ranking)
- active on social networks and engage with your visitors there (remember the more you engage with them the more they will share your content which also a factor for ranking)
Hope this helps :)

YoannKehl.
09-16-2016, 05:40 AM
I've heard people say they dont do any seo because they just put up really great content with relevant keywords. However, i've heard some companies get good results building links. What is your experience?

Content is really important for optimizing your website. When I had to make a website for my business the specialists told me: Make strong content, we will do the rest. Of course I followed their advice but it wasn't enough. If you want to get better positions in Google you need good seo. At first you can do it on your own. You can use Social networks to promote your website. They have user friendly advertising platforms so it will be easy for you to manage your pages and advertisings. To be honest I also don't understand much of SEO but I found good sources of information on the Internet. You can read the beginners guide to search engine optimizations of moz.com. Also you can follow the blog of hubspot.com. Once you do all this and your website runs well you have to maintain it - with new content, with audit, like website code security testing, html seo analysis, rating and link building (source: webexperti.com). If you aren't able to do this than you can ask for help your friends or even specialists in this area.
Good luck :)

dewalds86
09-23-2016, 03:11 AM
Shouldnt a good seo company also be able to write good content? Surely content writing is part of seo.

dewalds86
09-28-2016, 05:52 AM
It definitely inst easy writing your own content but it can be done.

Sarah K
09-30-2016, 01:10 AM
Writing quality content is key, but the problem is you can't always do it all by yourself, especially if you're trying to run an online business for yourself. It's not only writing the content, but marketing it and building backlinks as well. It's easy enough to purchase content for your site, but making sure you're getting ranked for good keywords is the tricky part.

Daniel160
12-17-2016, 03:28 PM
Actually I can reply your question. Back link is much important alittle bit than only good content, even I don't wanna admit myself. Because I got 2 sites, one was done by a hired SEO company ( from india), which was full of old content and never updated, got a very good ranking on Google after doing many backlinks from them, but, my another good content site was not doing well on ranking, even I focused on updating every day on them. It really means something. I don't want to show my viewpoint because this will make us lasy anyway, for any reasons we should update our sites and bring readers more good contents, that's spirit of network actually.

printshop1
12-21-2016, 03:16 AM
Both Good content and Links are necessary for organic ranking. Without links you won't get the desired results and it becomes even more difficult when the niche is highly competitive. So as per Search engine the 3 important ranking factors are Content, Links and RankBrain.

GoalsOnGoals
02-06-2017, 08:46 AM
You need a mixture of both. In order to rank well you typically need REALLY good content that people actually want to read.

dewalds86
02-08-2017, 01:47 AM
It is a myth that good content on its own will rank well. Yes you need good content but it also needs to be promoted in order to rank well.

Skydog
02-15-2017, 12:15 PM
Content is always going to be the bread and butter for seo. If the content isn't likable or relevant to who and what people are searching for, your business won't do too well.

Daniel160
02-27-2017, 12:58 PM
Actually my suggestion is that you write your articles on your website as there is no one but you are professional in your industry, meanwhile you can hire a SEO company for link building for you, that's what I did.

ahadarzi
04-27-2017, 02:49 AM
I've heard people say they dont do any seo because they just put up really great content with relevant keywords. However, i've heard some companies get good results building links. What is your experience?

Of course, the google loves good quality content. If you are passionate writer, you don't need to hire an seo company. Writing interesting and engaging content daily and keep updating your website atleast weekly once. Content is big factor for SEO.

Arsudar
06-07-2017, 12:36 AM
I think it depends, mostly I see people hire SEO company to do the off-page rather than on-page. And so personally I think it's best to write the content by ourselves since we are the only one who can understand our own site structure the most.
By saying that I don't mean hiring SEO company is useless or bad, these companies totally work. The only problem is knowing which particular company to hire since there are considerable amount of ineffective SEO "companies" out there. My company use to be in that situation once, in which we hired a SEO company with a 2 months contract. however, more than 2 months have passed and our pages can't even in the top 20... and so it was a pretty awful experience.

Darcie-amber
06-12-2017, 11:49 AM
My opinion is that it's an entirely personal decision depending on quite a number of factors. For example..if you needed good results within three months or less then you would def need to hire SEO . Otherwise learn yourself do it you will get result but it takes some time to reach such a goal.

wrongguy
06-23-2017, 06:24 AM
If you want to achieve the highest results you should have both content and links, however links start to losing their importance. If you want your website to rank higher, content and links are not enough.

Yuvraj
06-27-2017, 02:20 AM
As far as in my humble opinion that seo has great work to optimize websites ranking on the top of search engines.All know that content is backbone of getting high quality links but i am concerned that if on page is better like content or keywords are perfect for each other then yes it is great for our site's higher ranked but it is not enough for seo because their are alot of techniques which are really pending like off page optimization's activities link building included blog commenting,article submission,forum posting,guest posting etc.It is very essential to aware google sandbox or google to tell about our techniques included content so that google bot collect all the data and show results of the top pages of search engines.So link building is that process which often keep your site rich according to Google's norms.What do you think guys?

lpbusiness
07-05-2017, 08:00 AM
I'd echo these sentiments. From my experience with others who have considered this or used SEO, they tend to take an approach of balancing duties between themselves and the SEO company - usually saving the easier tasks for themselves! I recommend doing some of your own research into SEO and then see what a company could potentially add that you are finding difficult to complete.

Hope this helps

jeffscott
06-22-2018, 02:55 AM
I've heard people say they don't do any seo because they just put up really great content with relevant keywords.

Creating great content with relevant keywords is part of an SEO because you are aware of using keywords as simple as that.